Story was not hard to swallow. When those busy scientists managed to break news of our coup, they had reported Warden as dead. . . whereas Mike had kept him alive and on job by impersonating him. When Authority Earthside demanded a report from Warden on this wild rumor, Mike had consulted Prof, then had accepted call and given a convincing imitation of senility, managing to deny, confirm, and confuse every detail. Our announcements followed, and thereafter Warden was no longer available even in his computer alter ego. Three days later we declared independence.
This North American wanted to know what reason they had to believe that one word of this was true? Prof smiled most saintly smile and made effort to spread thin hands before letting them fall to coverlet. “The gentleman member from North America is urged to go to Luna, visit Senator Hobart’s sickbed, and see for himself. Indeed all Terran citizens are invited to visit Luna at any time, see anything. We wish to be friends, we are at peace, we have nothing to hide. My only regret is that my country is unable to furnish transportation; for that we must turn to you.”
Chinee member looked at Prof thoughtfully. He had not said a word but missed nothing.
Chairman recessed hearing until fifteen hundred. They gave us a retiring room and sent in lunch. I wanted to talk but Prof shook head, glanced around room, tapped ear. So I shut up. Prof napped then and I leveled out my wheel chair and joined him; on Terra we both slept all we could. Helped. Not enough.
They didn’t wheel us back in until sixteen hundred; committee was already sitting. Chairman then broke own rule against speeches and made a long one more-in-sorrow-than-anger.
Started by reminding us that Luna Authority was a nonpolitical trusteeship charged with solemn duty of insuring that Earth’s satellite the Moon–Luna, as some called it–was never used for military purposes. He told us that Authority had guarded this sacred trust more than a century, while governments fell and new governments rose, alliances shifted and shifted again–indeed, Authority was older than Federated Nations, deriving original charter from an older international body, and so well had it kept that trust that it had lasted through wars and turmoils and realignments.
(This is news? But you see what he was building towards.)
“The Lunar Authority cannot surrender its trust,” he told us solemnly. “However, there appears to be no insuperable obstacle to the Lunar colonists, if they show political maturity, enjoying a degree of autonomy. This can be taken under advisement. Much depends on your behavior. The behavior, I should say, of all you colonists. There have been riots and destruction of property; this must not be.”
I waited for him to mention ninety dead Goons; he never did. I will never make a statesman; I don’t have high-level approach.
“Destroyed property must be paid for,” he went on. “Commitments must be met. If this body you call a Congress can guarantee such things, it appears to this committee that this so-called Congress could in time be considered an agency of the Authority for many internal matters. Indeed it is conceivable that a stable local government might, in time, assume many duties now failing on the Protector and even be allowed a delegate, non-voting, in the Grand Assembly. But such recognition would have to be earned.
“But one thing must be made clear. Earth’s major satellite, the Moon, is by nature’s law forever the joint property of all the peoples of Earth. It does not belong to that handful who by accident of history happen to live there. The sacred trust laid upon the Lunar Authority is and forever must be the supreme law of Earth’s Moon.”
(“–accident of history,” huh? I expected Prof to shove it down his throat. I thought he would say– No, never did know what Prof would say. Here’s what he did say):
Prof waited through several seconds of silence, then said, “Honorable Chairman, who is to be exiled this time?”
“What did you say?”
“Have you decided which one of you is to go into exile? Your Deputy Warden won’t take the job”–this was true; he preferred to stay alive. “He is functioning now only because we have asked him to. If you persist in believing that we are not independent, then you must be planning to send up a new warden.”